THE OSCARS SHOULD JUST BE HOSTED BY A ROBOT, BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT THE ACADEMY REALLY WANTS
So Kevin Hart was forced to withdraw as host of the Oscars this year.
Kevin freakin’ Hart.
In case you missed it, the online mob did what they always seem to do these days: They took an incredibly talented, funny, brilliant performer, found some old social media comments of his they did not like, and then ginned up enough outrage to get him fired.
This time, the offending tweets were off-color jokes made about gay people, and within hours, Hart was put into a position where he was forced to pull himself out of the job.
Of course, what these online mobs never seem to understand is that we are all human and if you look hard enough, you will find things you find objectionable said by EVERYBODY.
There are absolutely zero exceptions to this.
What they also do not get is that Hart is a comedian, which means he is supposed to be provocative and, at times, controversial.
That is the entire job of a comedian: To make people laugh by saying things that challenge viewpoints on a wide variety of subjects.
You do not have to like the jokes Hart made, but that is the whole point: His comedy, like every comedian, is not for everybody.
He is going to say things that upset people, because that is the entire nature of the job.
Unfortunately, Hart was not the first and he will not be the last.
Recently, Director James Gunn was fired from an upcoming film when it was discovered he had made inappropriate jokes about pedophilia on Twitter years ago.
Tweets were later unearthed belonging to comedians Sarah Silverman and Michael Ian Black that were of a similar nature with calls to penalize them in some way, as well.
Comedian Samantha Bee recently faced criticism for calling President Trump’s daughter Ivanka a “feckless c — t.”
People always seem to argue whether or not incidents like these are offensive or inappropriate, and what to do about it.
But truth be told, what should be done about it is nothing at all.
The entire point of the comedy is to be adversarial in a funny way.
That does not mean nasty with no punchline, but it does mean saying things that will make some people squirm.
For example, James Gunn’s twitter jokes were pretty disgusting.
However, I believe he never should have been fired for them.
When you start organizing campaigns to try to ruin somebody for jokes you find objectionable, that is a slippery slope.
Because the outrage mob is great when you are on the right side of it, but you could be leading it today only to be destroyed by it tomorrow.
If you do not believe me, just ask Samantha Bee, Sarah Silverman, Michael Ian Black, and James Gunn, all of whom were members of the mob at one point until the mob turned against them.
To his credit, Kevin Hart has never engaged in these types of online mob tactics, but now he knows what happens when they decide to target you, anyway.
Sure, Hart and the others will survive and their careers will go on, as they should.
I just hope that at some point, comedians and those in position to hire them would stop giving into the mob and tell them to pound sand.
Because as the great Ricky Gervais recently said, the only truly offensive comedians are the ones who make apologies.
